During this journey I heard the following story; and as I was acquainted with the person to whom the circumstances occurred, I can vouch for its veracity. A Brazilian who had been wealthy, but who had, through many imprudencies, and from many deeds which deserve a much severer name, reduced himself to a state of comparative poverty, resided in this part of the country at the time I travelled through it. He was a man of loose morals and savage disposition, but of most pleasant manners. He had in one particular instance, which pre-eminently stamped his character, behaved in a most shameful manner to a lady to whom he professed himself to be attached. He had possessed many slaves; but at the time the following occurrences took place three or four only remained, and of these one alone was in health. Apprehensive of being assassinated by some of the persons whom he had injured and insulted, he usually kept the doors and windows of his residence well secured, excepting one entrance which was likewise closed at dusk. One evening, three men knocked at the door, and asked leave to pass the night in some of the out-houses of the plantation; the owner answered from within, but did not open the door, saying that they might sleep in the mill. About an hour afterwards there was another knock, and a person requested that some fruit might be sold to him. The owner fetched some, and inconsiderately opened the door to give it to the man; but when he looked out, all the three were there, and as he reached the fruit to one of them, a second fired, and the greatest part of the shot entered the abdomen. The known courage of the wounded man made these fellows hesitate in approaching him immediately, by which means he had time to reach his sword, which stood near to where he was, and he was enabled to close and bolt the door. This being done, he reached his bed with great difficulty, expecting that every minute would be his last. The men tried to gain admittance through some of the doors or windows; but not succeeding in this, they rode off. As soon as the slave who was in health heard the report of the gun, and saw his master wounded, he left the house, recollecting (which is somewhat surprising) to lock the door; he made all haste to a neighbouring plantation, distant one league. The owner of the place to which the slave had fled, ordered a hammock to be prepared, and set off with sixteen negroes; he was accompanied by his chaplain, who brought with him a candle, and all the other necessary appendages to the bed-side of a dying Catholic. They arrived, and found the wounded man in a state which led them to suppose that he could not live many hours; but he was confessed, and anointed with the holy oil, and thus prepared for the worst. Then they put him into the hammock, and his neighbour had him conveyed to his residence. The person who related this story to me, did not fail to add, that a lighted candle was